Charles van Commenee has admitted to deliberately fuelling the storm over
Tiffany Porter's nationality by naming her captain, to get the issue out of
the way before the London 2012 Olympics.

The UK Athletics coach said he knew naming someone with a dual nationality as captain for the World Indoor Championships would come under scrutiny in the media, but that it was better for this to take place in March, as opposed to July during the pressure-cooker atmosphere of a home Games.

“That [the reaction] did not surprise me,” said Van Commenee.

“When I appoint Tiffany Porter I know it’s going to create waves, so I wanted it out there in March and not go through it all in July. It did not surprise me because I almost initiated it.”

Porter won a silver medal at the Championships in Istanbul, contributing to the total haul of seven, but Van Commenee admits that if there were an Olympic Games this week, his team would be unlikely to hit his medal target of eight and one gold.

Big medal hopes Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah have had difficult starts to the year and Van Commenee is aware that they could quite easily end up with out a medal at the London Olympics.

“I am not certain that if we had the Olympic Games this week that we would hit our target,” he told the Times (£). “I probably won’t be certain in August. We have made good progress and that was confirmed in the indoor season, but it’s not about indoors, it’s about outdoors.”

“I am always concerned. That’s my job. They pay me to be concerned. If I’m not, then it will get relaxed and alertness would go out of the window. Good coaches are always concerned.

“At the World Championships last year the top end did very well, but we still only won seven medals. There were one or two lucky medals and it was not as if a whole host of people were pushing for more. It’s not easy.”

“Before the World Championships there was a lot of expectation in the athletics community and the media. Then they are disappointed that we did not have all these gold medals.

“It was almost naive and it was as if the rest of the world did not compete. We have a few in the mix [for gold], but Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah and Dai Greene can win and they can also easily end up without a medal."